Stephen Hawking Says We Only Have 1,000 Years Left On Earth

If you planned on undertaking any really, really long-term projects any time soon, like preparing a time capsule for distant generations, don't bother: we've only got 1,000 years left on Planet Earth according to Stephen Hawking.

During a talk at Oxford University Union on November 15, Professor Hawking stated "I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet." And coming from the man regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein, it's probably a statement we should pay attention to.

(Photo: Huffington Post)

However, it's not all doom and gloom as Hawking remains convinced that advances in technology will allow us to discover more exoplanets with the potential for human colonization. "We must...continue to go into space for the future of humanity," he noted during the one-hour speech.

Basically, the world in the future will look a little something like Interstellar with humanity forced to leave the Blue Planet in search of new pastures. That is, if we don't want life as we know it to die out entirely. He explains:

"We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super] computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe."

Hawking's predictions for the future have been increasingly bleak in recent times. In August 2015, he teamed up with Bill Gates and Elon Musk to warn the public of the dangers of developing artificial intelligence, stating that it "could spell the end of the human race."

So consider yourself warned: if machines don't annihilate us over the next 1,000 years, the planet itself will.